A tongue piercing gone horribly

By Cory Doctorow at 4:24 pm Thursday, Dec 13

A tongue piercing gone horribly awry results in a brain abcess. Stefan sez: "BLARGH! Watch for this one to become Urban Mythologized: "And then whenthe docotor put the probe in her ear, a torrent of pus ran out and she diedon the spot!"Or get recycled into a story on 'E.R.'"

The women, in her early 20s, reported that two to three days after her tongue was pierced, it became swollen and tender and had a foul-tasting discharge. "After that, she gave up on tongue jewelry and took the barbell stud out, and the symptoms cleared up within a few days," Martinello said.

But about a month later, she began suffering from severe headaches, fever, nausea and vomiting, and also had difficulty maintaining her balance. She was referred to the Yale physicians when a CT scan performed done in an emergency room showed an abnormality in her brain at the cerebellum, the region that controls coordination and voluntary muscular activity.

LinkDiscuss (Thanks, Stefan!)